The American medias tenacity to link Malaysia to terrorism continues with the latest issue of Time claiming that the notorious al-Qaeda terror network was still thriving in the country.

In a report titled Eye of the Storm in its Feb 11 issue, the international news magazine also claims that groups active in the illicit arms trade in Southeast Asia continue to meet regularly in Malaysia with their al-Qaeda backers.

According to the report, sources claimed that meetings between militant Islamic groups and their al-Qaeda financiers continue to take place in hotels near Kuala Lumpur, Port Dickson, Melaka, Johor Bahru and Singapore.

These groups use the Internet to set up the venue and date of their meetings. The messages are sent in encrypted codes, an arms trader was quoted as saying in the report.

A spokesperson for Indonesias Free Aceh Movement told the journal that he regularly placed orders for weapons with arms syndicates operating in the region.

The weapons are bought in Thailand, sent down to Malaysia and then on board boats across the Straits of Melaka, said the report.

It went on to say that the two men responsible for spreading a radical new vision of Islam in the region, Abubakar Bashir and Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, were well received by members of the Selangor branch of the Malaysian Mujahidin Group (KMM).

The two men wooed potential KMM members in Selangor and elsewhere into a new organisation they established in the late 1990s, called the Jemaah Islamiah, said Time .

It also said that the activities of the Jemaah Islamiah cells throughout Malaysia and Singapore were funded by al-Qaeda cash channelled through Middle Eastern banks in Malaysia.

Terrorist bogey

However, in an interview with Time in the same issue, Abubakar denied any connection with the al-Qaeda terror network.

I have never heard of al-Qaeda being here (in the region). The rumour was invented because the United States feels threatened by the Muslim potential here, he reportedly said.

Abubakar, who has returned to Indonesia after allegations of his involvement with militant groups in Malaysia surfaced, claimed that charges against him were a ploy by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to use the terrorist bogey to discredit opposition members.

This is just a political game ... Jemaah Islamiah is an invention by Mahathir to instill fear [into] the Muslim community, said Abubakar in the Time interview.

Hambali, whom Time described as the chief executive officer for Abubakars Islamic region ambition, was said to have disappeared.

Hambali was said to be responsible for organising paramilitary training stints in Afghanistan and Pakistan for Jemaah Islamiah members. He was also alleged to have masterminded a series of terrorist bombing missions in the region.

Report false, negative

Time also claimed that Malaysian Yazid Sufaat had admitted under interrogation to giving suspected Sept 11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui an appointment letter from a Malaysian company introducing him as a marketing consultant. Moussaoui was charged in the US last month for conspiring with the al-Qaeda.

Yazid supposedly confessed to no knowledge of the Sept 11 plan but suspected that two Middle Eastern men he was seen with in Kuala Lumpur were involved as they had asked if there were flying schools in Malaysia.

The two were later identified as the hijackers who crashed a commercial jetliner into the Pentagon on Sept 11.

Yazid has been held under the Internal Security Act and is being detained at the Kamunting Detention Camp in Perak. He was arrested by police on Dec 9 last year at the Malaysia-Thai border on his way back from Bangkok, Thailand.

The Time report comes hot on the heels of the Newsweek article of Feb 4 which cited a secret Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report as saying that Malaysia was a primary operational launchpad for the Sept 11 terror attacks.

The magazine quoted an intelligence source as saying that Kuala Lumpur was the perfect place for Arabs to lie low, with reference to Malaysias no-visa requirement for Arabs to enter the country.

The government has since said that it may sue Newsweek over the negative and false report.

Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail is said to be studying the controversial article to decide whether the matter will be pursued through civil action or via a criminal charge under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.